The Day the Music Died
by Pierson Nyx
Summary: Katie Gardener knew that something was amiss, it was silent, for the first time in weeks.


Katie Gardener knew something was amiss when she woke up at that morning. She knew that something had gone wrong. She could feel it in the air, in the sunlight streaming through the windows of the Demeter cabin, but she could also hear it. It was silent.

It had been weeks since the end of the Giant war. The camp had been rebuilt, the daily routine was back to the normal, and the Romans had gone back to California, but not before saying goodbye, as fighting to save the world had mended the rift between the two types of demigods.

However, one thing had never been the same. Every night, the camp would listen music being played in the Poseidon cabin. It was not very loud, but it was just loud enough that all the cabins could hear it. The music choice also was intriguing to those in the camp. It was not any of the popular songs of the day, or any of the songs that people would associate with Percy. It was classical music. Masses, Marches, Overtures. It was all orchestral and vocal, but they all had one thing in common. All the music was somber. None of it was happy, or inventing.

No one knew why Percy had suddenly started to play music from his cabin, and no one knew that Annabeth would sneak in to sleep with him every night, not in a sexual way however. They just needed to be near each other.

Katie Gardener had woken up to silence. It had unnerved her, as she had gotten used to the music every night, and in some cases, it had even helped her sleep, but something was definitely wrong. She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes, clearing the sleepiness out of them. She quickly got dressed, and walked to the Poseidon cabin. An eerie silence hung in the air as she walked up to the door. Felling something amiss, she knocked on the door. Nothing happened. She knocked again, and still nothing.

Katie began to worry. Percy was always up at this time of day. He was always helping someone in the arena, or at least moving around in his cabin, but the silence spoke for her. He was not moving, he was not at the area helping someone, and he was not at the beach annoying the nymphs. She reached up and grabbed the doorknob, silently turning it, and pushed the door open.

At first, nothing seemed to be wrong within the cabin. The cabin looked as it normally did, from the times that she had to do inspection. The beds were made, and the Minotaur horn hung on the wall above the fountain.

Katie looked around, trying to find why there wasn't any music, but she didn't see anything, until she looked at a bed in the far corner of the room. She knew that Percy didn't sleep there, as one of the other beds was always a mess during inspection, but the one that he normally slept in was made.

The bed in the far corner seemed to have two masses in it. The blankets were haphazardly thrown around on the bed, covering what was underneath.

Taking a deep breath, Katie moved towards the bed. As she got closer she noticed that the blankets were a different that all the other ones in the cabin. Part of the blankets on this bed were red, a crimson red that Katie knew all too well as the color of mortal blood.

Katie ran to the bed and through off the covers, immediately recoiling at the sight that she found. After a moment of shock, she let out an ear piercing scream that echoed around the cabin, and undoubtedly around the camp.

Moments later, campers came rushing into the cabin, some still in the clothes they slept in, and others halfway dressed. What they found in the cabin broke their hearts. Katie Gardener was sobbing hysterically on her knees in front of a bed in the cabin, her hands covered in red. The other campers ran to her, and they two froze at the sight that lay in front of them, many of them starting to sob just like Katie did.

Lying in the bed, eyes staring openly at the ceiling, completely void of any life, with pale skin and no movement of the chest, were the heroes of Olympus, the savors of the world. Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase lay in the bed, completely lifeless. They each had a stab wound in the middle of their chest, each right above the sternum. Clutched in each of their hands, were two identical daggers, each coated in blood. The older campers recognized the daggers in their hands, as two objects that Leo Valdez had made. They were the two daggers that Percy and Annabeth had commissioned as a one year anniversary present to each other, engraved with the words _As long as we are together._

Their anniversary was the day before. It had been a happy occasion for the entire camp, as they got to see their two saviors happy and excited, but the day the music died was not a happy day for the camp. It was the day that they all realized that their saviors had needed saviors as well. They were trapped in their own heads. Fighting with the memories of Tartarus, and fighting the memories of all those that had died, and sadly, their two saviors couldn't survive their memories, as they were too much.

After Chiron had been summoned to the scene, it was decided that they had taken their own lives, choosing to live in Elysium than having to see reminders of their memories every day.

The campers from camps, the hunters, and the gods watched horrified as the iris message showed the trials that their two saviors had faced in Tartarus. None of them had thought that the two of them had survived so much hardship in the depths of the pit of hell. And they watched horrified as the two of them put on a mask every day to show the rest of the campers. And they watched as the discovered why Percy had started to play music. They understood now that he played the music to cover up their screams as they awoke form nightmares every night. They understood now why Annabeth had been with him. They understood that the two of them had leaned heavily on each other, as they were the only ones who could understand what they went through.

And they watched horrified as they took their own lives, believing that they would listen the burdens that they believed that they placed on the others around them. Hades had confirmed that they were in Elysium, but he refused to let anyone speak to them, believing that for the moment, they deserved peace.

What the two saviors of Olympus didn't realize was that if they had let someone know, if they had told someone that they would have survived.


End file.
